What distinguishes Davis's account from those of most other
whistleblowers is that it compellingly presents malfeasance
without divulging any classified information (he did give a
classified version of the report to members of Congress).

Davis has completed four combat deployments (Desert Storm,
Afghanistan in 2005-06, Iraq in 2008-09 and Afghanistan in
2010-11) — placing him "in arguably the most significant Army
programs of the past 15 years" — and is currently serving as
a Regular Army officer in the Armor Branch.

During his most recent Afghan deployment (November 2010 to
October 2011), Davis covered 9,178
miles while conducting mounted and dismounted
combat patrols with both conventional forces and Special Forces
troops. He spoke with over 250 soldiers from the lowest
ranking 19-year old private to brigade and division
commanders as well as Afghan security officials, Afghan
civilians and a few village elders while participating in
operations in almost every significant region of Afghanistan.

The general [themes that International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF)] and US military leaders stress are: the Afghan
government will be at least minimally capable by 2014 and is
trending in that direction; the violence is waning in AFG
specifically as a result of the surge; and the people recognize
the way of the Taliban is a dead-end… None of those
characterizations are accurate.

Current CIA Director Gen.
David Petraeus was ISAF commander from June 10, 2010 to July 18,
2011.AP

Consequently, the NGO report advised personnel to ignore official
accounts ("no matter how authoritative the source") because
"messages of the nature are solely intended to influence
American and European public opinion ahead of the withdrawal, and
are not intended to offer an accurate portrayal of the situation
for those who live and work here."

Davis establishes the three key factors to success
in the Afghan war — 1) Degrading the insurgency to
the point where Afghan security forces to handle them alone; 2)
Training the [Afghan National Security Forces ] to the point
that they can handle the weakened insurgency; and 3) Ensuring
that the Afghan government is minimally corrupt and sufficiently
able to govern — and subsequently contrasts
what our leaders have said in the media with numerous
unclassified reports and personal observations that portray the
brutal reality on the ground.

Regarding the state of the insurgency, Davis states that one only
has to notice that
U.S. casualties have
increased with each successive increase of
troops since violence began to
rise in 2005.

The number of total
U.S. casualties rose to its highest rate of the war in
October 2011 — despite the infusion of 30,000 additional soldiers
18 months earlier — and only began to drop once 10,000 troops
were withdrawn by the end of December 2011.

Meaning, the issue wasn’t that the Taliban got stronger, the
ANSF got weaker, or the Afghan government became even
more corrupt – it was that as we inserted more US troops
into Afghanistan we unwittingly provided the Taliban more
targets to shoot at ... more forward
operating bases to fire rockets into; more dismounted
patrols to ambush. When the number of
troops increased, we saw a concurrent rise in the number of
US casualties, insurgent attacks, and IED attacks to
virtually the same percentage, in each and every
case.

Even if the insurgency has been getting weaker over time (which
Davis denies), Davis observed that "the Afghan forces were
completely incapable of handling the job without U.S. presence."

From the report (emphasis ours):

What I saw first-hand, in virtually every circumstance, was a
barely functioning organization — often cooperating
with the insurgent enemy – that was dramatically
different than the progressing organization depicted by the
[Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy] in the
March 2011 hearing.

He then offers two examples — the Pech Valley and the Tangi
Valley — of situations in which U.S. troops would fight (and die)
for a position only to be sent back because the ANSF
either ran away or were totally unable to secure the positions
without U.S. help.

As for the Afghan government, Davis notes that it continues
to prove itself incapable of rising above corruption and has lost
the trust of its own people.

He cites the newspaper Hasht-e Sobh, which reported that "the
government which was created with America's support has
turned into the most corrupt government in Afghan history" and
quoted former Deputy Minister of Interior Abdul Hadi Khaled as
saying that his government was "sunk in corruption and taken
over by mafia networks that is (sic) mainly held responsible for
the dire situation in Afghanistan."

Thus, when the main "issues are examined — particularly over
a number of years — it becomes very difficult indeed to maintain
that anything short of a continual deterioration of our mission
has occurred, and continues to deteriorate through today. "

Davis ended the report by stating that it "is time –
beyond time – for the evidence and facts to be considered in
their comprehensive whole in a candid and honest public forum
before we spend another man or woman’s life or limbs in
Afghanistan."